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Europe's freshwater biodiversity under climate change: distribution shifts and conservation needs
(2014)
Aim
To assess the future climatic suitability of European catchments for freshwater species and the future utility of the current network of protected areas.
Location
Europe.
Methods
Using recently updated catchment-scale species data and climate projections from multiple climate models, we assessed the climate change threat by the 2050s for 1648 European freshwater plants, fishes, molluscs, odonates, amphibians, crayfish and turtles for two dispersal scenarios and identified hotspots of change at three spatial scales: major river basins, countries and freshwater ecoregions. We considered both common species and the often overlooked rare species. To set our findings within the context of current and future conservation networks, we evaluated the coverage of freshwater biodiversity by Europe's protected area network.
Results
Six per cent of common and 77% of rare species are predicted to lose more than 90% of their current range. Eight fish species and nine mollusc species are predicted to experience 100% range loss under climate change. As the most species-rich group, molluscs are particularly vulnerable due to the high proportion of rare species and their relatively limited ability to disperse. Furthermore, around 50% of molluscs and fish species will have no protected area coverage given their projected distributions.
Main conclusions
We identified the species most at threat due to projected changes in both catchment suitability and representation within the European protected area network. Our findings suggest an urgent need for freshwater management plans to facilitate adaptation to climate change.
Freshwater ecosystems host disproportionately high numbers of species relative to their surface area yet are poorly protected globally. We used data on the distribution of 1631 species of aquatic plant, mollusc, odonate and fish in 18,816 river and lake catchments in Europe to establish spatial conservation priorities based on the occurrence of threatened, rangerestricted and endemic species using the Marxan systematic conservation planning tool. We found that priorities were highest for rivers and ancient lakes in S Europe, large rivers and lakes in E and N Europe, smaller lakes in NW Europe and karst/limestone areas in the Balkans, S France and central Europe. The a priori inclusion of well-protected catchments resulted in geographically more balanced priorities and better coverage of threatened (critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable) species. The a priori exclusion of well-protected catchments showed that priority areas that need further conservation interventions are in S and E Europe. We developed three ways to evaluate the correspondence between conservation priority and current protection by assessing whether a cathment has more (or less) priority given its protection level relative to all other catchments. Each method found that priority relative to protection was high in S and E Europe and generally low in NW Europe. The inclusion of hydrological connectivity had little influence on these patterns but decreased the coverage of threatened species, indicating a trade-off between connectivity and conservation of threatened species. Our results suggest that catchments in S and E Europe need urgent conservation attention (protected areas, restoration, management, species protection) in the face of imminent threats such as river regulation, dam construction, hydropower development and climate change. Our study presents continental-scale conservation priorities for freshwater ecosystems in ecologically meaningful planning units and will thus be important in freshwater biodiversity conservation policy and practice, and water management in Europe.